I still remember that afternoon clearly. It was three o'clock on a Friday, during a heavy rainy season, when I was six years old. My mother let me sit by the bedroom window, waiting—waiting for someone who might not come, or might come, and it was that uncertainty that made it hurt.
She spoke with a hopeful voice, a voice I had heard so many times that I knew every hidden emotion buried inside it.
"Just wait, Takeshi. Your father will come home today."
I believed her. Six-year-old children believe anything their mothers say, especially when those words are wrapped in a smile that tries desperately to look happy—a smile that never quite reaches the eyes.
Our house was not big. It was a semi-modern traditional home with two small bedrooms separated by sliding shoji doors that often creaked, one living room with slightly worn tatami mats, always lit by dim lights to save electricity, and a small kitchen that constantly smelled of vegetable soup or fried fish. It was the home of a middle-class family struggling to hold its place in an economy that never stopped changing.
My father had his own room—a room he rarely used.
That room felt like a monument to absence, like an altar built for a god who never answered prayers.
The door was always neatly closed. The futon was folded perfectly during the day, its edges aligned withiling symmetrically. The pillows smelled of laundry soap, not of a living, breathing human head. His desk was filled with documents I could not understand—financial reports, business papers, all speaking of a world far removed from this house. Even my father's scent was absent. The room felt more like a museum display than the bedroom of a man who truly lived and slept there.
Every Friday afternoon, following the same ritual week after week, my mother cleaned that room meticulously, as if preparing for the arrival of an important guest—even though that guest had been gone for a long time, even though that guest might not come today either.
She opened the windows wide, letting the evening wind carry the emptiness away, as if the air itself could take her sorrow with it. She shook the bedsheets with graceful movements filled with unspoken sadness, movements like someone letting go of memories. She swept the floor carefully, as if afraid of disturbing invisible monuments of hope scattered throughout the room.
When she finished the physical cleaning, my mother sat on the edge of the bed—the bed that had not borne her husband's weight for weeks—and simply stared into the emptiness with distant eyes, as though she could see beyond the walls, beyond the house, beyond the city, searching for my father in the faraway place where he worked.
Her face always changed in those moments. The eyes that were usually warm, gentle, and filled with maternal love transformed into the eyes of a waiting wife—eyes that had waited for years. The eyes of a woman who had sacrificed her own happiness for hope, a hope that might never come true. Eyes that loved someone she could not reach, could not touch, could not freely talk to about anything.
"When will Dad come home, Mom?" I asked softly from the doorway, my voice small and careful, as if speaking too loudly might shatter the silence, as if my voice could break something fragile.
She smiled—not a real smile, but a forced one, a mask to hide something too heavy and too painful to share with a six-year-old child. It looked like happiness, but if you looked closely, if you knew what to look for, you could see the cracks at the corners of her eyes—crystals of tears that had not yet fallen.
"Your father is working, Takeshi. He's working hard for all of us. So you can go to school properly, so we can eat good food, so we can have a comfortable home like this."
I nodded, though I didn't truly understand. That logic made no sense to the innocent mind of a six-year-old. How could working make someone disappear completely? How could love keep someone so far away? If my father truly loved us, why did he choose to leave? Those questions would haunt me for years.
My father was like a ghost. His presence could be felt in every aspect of our lives—in the money he sent each month, in the small packages he mailed for my birthdays, in the late-night phone calls with his distant voice. We knew he existed. We knew he cared in ways he couldn't express. But we couldn't touch him. We couldn't hug him sincerely and say thank you. We couldn't hear his voice except through a phone buzzing with broken, faraway sounds.
When I was in first grade, there was a boy named Kenji who was driven to school every day by his father in a shiny car. That car was a symbol of presence—a symbol of a father who wasn't too busy to take his child to school, to make sure he was safe, to say goodbye sincerely.
Kenji proudly talked about his father, his stories wrapped in confidence and pride I had never felt. How his father patiently taught him how to ride a bicycle without training wheels, holding the bike with one hand while running beside him, whispering words of encouragement. How they went to the park on weekends, eating ice cream that melted under the summer sun. How his father bought him the best toys when he got perfect scores in math—not because the gifts mattered, but because his father wanted to celebrate his achievements.
I listened with a heavy heart, with envy carving deeper into my chest, with a growing awareness that my life was different from other children's lives—that something about my family was not normal, that I would always be different.
"Where's your dad, Takeshi?" Kenji asked one day, without any intention to hurt me, with the pure curiosity only innocent children possess. "Why does your dad never come to school like mine?"
The simple question made my heart race. My thoughts spun desperately, searching for an answer that wouldn't make me feel ashamed, that wouldn't reveal that something was wrong with my family. I couldn't tell the truth. I couldn't say that my father was a living mystery—someone who existed yet didn't, someone we had but who didn't truly have us in any meaningful way. I couldn't tell Kenji that, because I was afraid he would think something was wrong with me, that my father's absence was my fault, that I was the reason he chose to leave.
So I lied—not a small lie, but a beautiful, dramatic one that would make Kenji jealous, that would make my friends look at me differently.
"My dad is overseas," I said confidently, my eyes steady, my voice firm like a professional actor on stage. "He's handling very big and very important business. He's building skyscrapers in other countries, Kenji—really tall buildings you can see from the sky. When he comes home, he'll bring me gifts. Very expensive and rare gifts from abroad, gifts your dad can't get for you."
Kenji believed me. Children always believe lies told with confidence and unwavering eyes. They believe because they want to believe, because a world where everyone has a perfect father is a more beautiful world—a world they can understand.
The lie made me feel better. It made me feel special. It turned my father's absence into something glamorous instead of a quiet sorrow whispering despair.
That night, when the sun had sunk behind distant mountains and the house was dark except for the dim light of a small desk lamp in the living room, I lay on my narrow futon and listened to my mother's voice.
She was on the phone. I knew it was my father. I always knew without being told. She only spoke like that to him—with a voice filled with love and desperation intertwined, trembling with emotions struggling to stay under control.
"When are you coming home?" she asked. Her voice shook, as if holding back a flood of tears that could change everything if released. "Takeshi keeps asking about you. He asks every day when his father will come home. I can't keep explaining why you're not here…"
A long pause followed. I imagined my father speaking from a place unimaginably far away—a place beyond a child's understanding, a place where the presence of a wife and child was not heavy enough to pull him back, a place where work mattered more than love.
"Yes, yes, I know you're busy," my mother continued, her voice calmer but colder, more exhausted—like someone who had fought for too long and was finally beginning to give up. "I've always known you're busy. The company is important. The projects are important. Everything is important. But he's our child. He's your son, Hiroshi. He needs you. I need you. Aren't we important enough?"
Another pause. Longer than the last. The silence felt endless, as if time itself had stopped, as if the world was holding its breath for what would be said next.
"Alright," my mother finally said, and I heard the decision in her voice—the decision to stop fighting, to accept that she couldn't change her husband's mind, that her love wasn't enough to bring him home. "Alright. Take care of yourself. Eat properly. Don't work too hard. I… we will wait."
She hung up the phone gently, with the delicacy of someone handling something fragile. I heard the sound of tears, though she tried to hide it with forced coughs, with small noises pretending everything was normal.
I lay on my bed and cried in silence—crying for my mother who accepted absence, crying for a father who couldn't come home, crying for myself because I had begun to understand that my life would always be about waiting for someone who would never come.